Click
here to see some of the photos from rallies against the Keystone Pipeline
across the country and the petition delivery at the White House. -
Good for them, vainly battling against the
overwhelming forces enthusiastically working toward world suicide as far
as us and many species are concerned but the world? It'll still be around
and, I know it must be disappointing to so many of us doing everything
possible to heat the globe, but life will survive and evolve as always and
in the big big picture, nothing significant, the dream continues
unstoppable. But must be really bad karma for those who let it happen. Now
let's see, who would that be? That's all the time I can spare for this
now. Time for a break. - DC

***

If you look at the world map from the
Dallas Morning News article on 2014 being the hottest year recorded,
you'll see that Bali was in one of the spots with the least temperature
rise. Guess that means we don't have to worry about anything here.
-
today's post in
Saunters

12-09-14 - Niel deGrass Tyson's Cosmos was wonderful. He's my
favorite materialist. He made an excellent pitch on the threat of climate
change from the halls of extinction - and that on a show on Fox TV, the
home of climate change denial. There were the five great extinctions so
far with names above their hallway entrance and then one unnamed. Pointed
out the unusual agreement of evidence pouring in from various and legion
scientific sources - biological, geological, meteorological, and so forth.
He said that his time climate change is clearly caused by people and that
not only do we know the cause, we know what to do and have the means to do
what's necessary - but we lack the will. He pointed out the seemingly
unstoppable march of short term profit. He said he didn't think it could
make us go extinct (which some scientists including Hawking would argue
with), but do we really want to leave this comfortable zone we've been
living in? Too late for that probably. Now it's just how much can we slow
it down.
Here's an LA Times article on his "powerful scientific case." Check
him out on YouTube and the Internet elsewhere.

I'm seeing more and more info that indicates we
could stop pumping all that carbon dioxide into the atmosphere if we cared
to. I don't want to disappoint or inconvenience all the people making
money that way, but maybe we could buy them off and tell them oh come on,
we're just trying to keep the biosphere habitable for you and your
offspring.

I enjoyed reading how the Book of Revelations was a social political
treatise on the times it was written, not a prophesy of future events. A
lot of early works weren't preserved because so many thought the end was
near. Even though the end does look near to me, I preserve anyway.
Mentioned recently like St. Francis saying he'd keep hoeing. Another image
is the guy who put his car up on blocks and disconnected the battery etc
in preparation for his part in human extinction in On the Beach. Just
seems like good form.

11-28-14 -
Juan Cole's Thanksgiving message from yesterday is a surprising and
stirring take on global warming and a call to action. To me, the fact that
major news outlets in the US rely on hacks rather than experts like Juan
Cole is a sad sign of the times. However, climate is not his area of
expertise.

Thanks to Peter
Coyote for telling me about this state by state project, sponsored by
actor Mark Ruffalo and others, including Stanford researchers. This
wonderful website shows how "The World Can Transition to 100% Clean,
Renewable Energy Starting Today." It includes an amazing state by state
map showing how each state in the U.S. already has the renewable, clean
energy resources that could take care of all its energy needs, without
relying on any of the fossil fuels or nuclear power that are devastating
our planet.
Check it out. - posted also in Taigen's Peace and
Justice page

9-23-14 - Michael Katz at the New York City Climate March two days ago
with his sister Carol, and SFZC alum Dian Woodner ran into David
Zimmerman, Linda Ruth Cutts and Steve Weintraub and his sister, Teah
Strozer, Susan O'Connell, and (more
at Sangha News)

These articles turn my attention to a cuke link from
late last year, 12-29 from an October NYTimes article:
And then there's overpopulation-
at the root(Thanks
Michael Katz). Andrew Main in Santa Fe. Also mentioned that as the primary
problem. How could anyone doubt this? Will post more on this.

5-04-14 -
Global cooling scheme
increases dangerous seafood toxin that destroys kidney function.
- thanks Andrew M who writes "This is what the Hopis call
the Crooked Path, wherein every "solution" proposed by human cleverness
merely creates new problems. According to the Hopi Prophecy, we are headed
for a great Purification (Hopi: Powateoni), and in fact I believe we are
already well into it:"

2-28-14 - Andy Ferguson - Since we
installed our green energy changes we’ve easily learned how to use them to
minimize energy. - read more on
Andy's cuke page.

2-17-14 - They did do a bit this Sunday but still, cuke dot com's
irresponsible irrelevance award goes to mainstream TV news for their
coverage of climate change:

TV news shows almost never
cover climate change, which ought to be one of the most
aggressively-reported issues around, given that, y'know, it's a dire
threat to the planet and everyone on it. Arecent
study from Media Mattersfound
that the Sunday shows on NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox spent acombined27
minutes on the topic in the whole of 2013. Meet the Press was singled out
as "failing to offer a single substantial mention of climate change" for
the entire year. - Media Matters

Thanks for the donation to 350 and plug
for action. It really isn’t too late, I think. I believe that that radical
palliative measures, including geo-engineering will likely be necessary,
but these must be complemented with the cheapest and correct path which is
to think globally and act locally to the best of our abilities.- posting in
Climate Change

2-03-14 - Made a tiny donation today to 350.org
and when it was through it opened up to a page thanking me, giving me the
opportunity to make a comment, with previous comments below. The top one
was Andy Ferguson. Check out
350 - for those with hope that it's not too late and those without hope
who think doing something is good form, a right thing to do - in my case
giving it that good old college drop out try. - dc

"Climate change is the most serious issue facing humanity today. It is
already seriously impacting economies, ecosystems, and people worldwide.
Left unchecked, it will cause tremendous suffering for all living beings."

I signed it and I hate to sign things or belong to
anything. I'd say the quote above was an understatement. - DC

12-24-13 - Put all the prior cuke posts on Climate Change
on its own page in the Species Threat Section. Ten years ago I didn't
think it was a species threat. Now I think it's moved from threat to
likelihood. At lunch with a couple of friends in Stinson Beach last month,
asked what I thought about climate change, my response was geared not to
spoil the meal. The most positive comment I can come up with, I said, is
that everything I believe always turns out to be wrong. - dc

11-03-13 -
Climate Change Report Sees Violent, Sicker, Poorer Future - Are we
including possible scenarios of climate change in our long term planning?
Are we preparing for various eventualities? Or are we marching along with
the governments, corporations, masses, ignoring the warnings? That's what
we here at cukeville do. What, us worry?

10-25-13 -
Arctic Temperatures Reach Highest Levels In 44,000 Years, Study Finds
- This is placed last as item 3 in today's What's New posts because my
brain is ill equipped to deal with such a slow moving threat, especially
one that doesn't focus on a smaller group and demands so many changes in
the money flow and in our habits. By smaller group how about our tribe or
my child or my teacher as a subject that could grab my attention. But a
threat to the species, to higher forms of life, to the biosphere as we
know it? And some ice melting far away? All too vague. Too bad. - dc
- posted in
Species Threats

According to our spies, the steering committee of those
planning a global military coup to force the human race to deal with
climate change, plan on immediately shutting down all coal plants world
wide. More reports on this soon. - dc

9-20-13 - Met a man collecting cans to sell. He used to be in
banking. He said he'd been thinking about climate change and how the human
race is bringing it on and doesn't seem to be able to make the sorts of
changes necessary to avert calamity, that it seems that neither democratic
or undemocratic states are capable of dealing with it and it's coming on in
a way that we're not mentally prepared for. He said he knows some folks
who have run some computer models on responses to climate change and that
the only one that worked out well for humans and the most other species
involved a global military takeover working with artificial intelligence.
More will surely be revealed. - dc

9-18-13 - Got this strange message: Read your Jr Hi article. Try pickleball.
You'd b a natural. Good conditioner, low stress & sociable sport.
You can play anywhere in country. Great low impact exercise for
old(and young) monks and Zen priests. Check out in your area.
"Have paddle, will travel". Searched and found this: Pickleball
is a highly contagious, progressive and incurable disease. How could I
resist with a come-on like that?

Predictions of possible global temperature rise by the end of this century
suggest that sea levels could rise by more than two meters,
much further than scientists had thought.
(DC's italics. Something I keep pointing out - climate change news
frequently has this sort of comment with it - either much further than
thought before or much faster or much worse or some new factor that makes
it worse or faster.)

6-03-13 -
Old Data Reveals Warming Oceans - just another article on climate
change. An early sentence in the article is characteristic of reporting on
this topic, not just now but way back - it's worse, happening faster than
scientists previously thought, or some new factor that accelerates it.

A main finding is that the impact of global warming on the oceans might
have been significantly underestimated: the oceans are absorbing far more
heat than previously realized.

5-11-13 - The human race for reaching the 400 parts per million for the
first time in four million years or so. The
World Suicide Club is delighted.

2-21-13 - A note
from Taigen Dan Leighton on the importance of stopping the Keystone XL
pipeline with a link to a talk he gave on this. He just returned from
demonstrating in front of the White House with 50,000 others.
- filed on Taigen's Peace and Justice Page.

Have not noticed Buddhist groups including this subject in their
projections and plans. Like the government. Like almost every institution
and everyone. Individual and local actions are good I think but only
massive global action it seems will help. All I do is mention it, link to
it, watch and wait. Good luck to us all. - dc

1-14-13 - So 2012 was the
hottest year on record in the US with a one degree spike that was
unprecedented, usually it's one tenth this way or that. I recall Dennis
Miller on some talk show a few years ago saying he could live with a world
that was one degree warmer and I'm sure that's what a lot of people think.
But it seems to me that thinking about the significance of the world's
average temperature in terms of what it's like outside is not useful.
Better to liken it to the temperature of a human, one's child or parent
might bring it home better for some. We could look at the world as our
mother who is running a bit of a fever with signs that the fever is going
to get worse. But that analogy also doesn't quite work. The mother is fine
- as George Carlin
pointed out - it's her children that will suffer from her running a
temperature, not her. She runs a few degrees and catastrophes happen,
world order is threatened. Stephen Hawken warned that too many degrees
could tip us into a Jurassic type climate not suitable for humans. Mother
earth would just have different children. Meanwhile the smartest pundits
like Zakaria whom I admire greatly, host conversations with authorities
whom speak of the necessity of every country having continued growth, the
benefits of all this cheap gas that wasn't figured on. We hear all sorts
of interesting ideas and learn important facts but there seems to be a
factor or two missing. We don't seem to be able to focus on serious
impending problems or prepare for and do everything we can to avert
catastrophe. See Jared Diamond's
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Are our leaders
to blame? Again I refer to George Carlin who didn't blame the
elected leaders
but the electorate.

Cuke staff takes day off to honor our interconnectivity with the land,
sky, water, animals, and plants. We will go forth into the world to hug
rocks, dance with trees, dissolve into the earth body. reflect on
public policy, sing to the crushing treads of corporate and governmental
robots which tower over us, crush our dreams, and disappear as we awaken.
- dc

2-22-07
- I was just getting ready to sit zazen but...

Trinkita hadn't seen An Inconvenient Truth so I watched the DVD
with her and once again was so impressed with the film and Al Gore and
with the extreme urgency of the issue of global warming and how well it's
all presented. Can't wait for the academy awards. Isn't that embarrassing.
And I am digging (through) the supplementary DVD materials like the
informative 30 minute intro and update by Al Gore. I appreciate how he
has put this whole thing together pretty much by himself - the info, the
slide show as he calls it - not the movie (thanks Laurie David and
Lawrence Bender and Davis Guggenheim and others).

The thought crossed my mind that what Gore's doing might be more important
than what he might have done as president cause, for one thing, there
might have been too many issues to deal with, like what to do with all
those Saudi's that were, due to having an alert crew running the country,
caught plotting to send planes into buildings. I thought it could be that
having these reckless, psychopathic, warmongering incompetents in charge
could be, from a global point of view, in terms of the survival of
civilization and the coral reefs and all, it could be that the good work
Gore's doing outbalances all that misery and waste. I think it's good for
him too - not being president. He's so much more free and easy-going now.
I really don't want him to run in 2008. Politics is a sea of lies and
misrepresentation so greatly influenced by sinister whispers and
worshipers of Mammon who cannot be concerned about the fate of the earth
and earthlings when there's so much short-term profit to be had, to be
dived into like ole Scrooge McDuck used to do. It would be fun. Oh yes,
back to that thought. It might turn out that Ralph Nader will be heralded
as the man who saved the world by making the 2000 election so close that
the Republicans could steal it thus freeing Al Gore up and away to pursue
his life-long passion - making people aware of global warming. And we turn
the tide in the nick of time. Hooray! Or maybe not. It doesn't look
like we're going to but, not to despair, I recommend seeing the film as
a terribly relevant thing to do and also heartily promote going to
the site of the film,http://climatecrisis.org. - DC

9-06.5-06
- Some ZC people went to Burning Man this year with a cardboard
zendo built by Paul Disco of
Joinery Structures. Mayumi Oda painted it. The idea was to burn it but
I think due to global warming rules, they can't. See
www.coolingman.org. Photo by Gene
de Smidt.

6-19-06 - To learn a little more about Global Warming, follow
this link. It's never too late
to do something, at least for fun.

6-17-06 - An official cuke.com point of view: we should pay attention to
global warming like we would a boulder above us about to fall. By we I
mean SFZC folk, Zennies in general, Buddhists, Spiritual seekers, and
humanoids. If we keep leaving it up to inanimate corporations and their
lackeys, we may be doomed to inanimacy. It may be too late and too hard,
but why not give it at least a hail mary. More tomorrow or at least Monday
if I don't get it in before going off for the day. Doing some Aluminati
visiting. Should do an Aluminati update. Luv. dc

1-21-06
-
this week's New Dimensions radio interview program is on "A Holistic
Approach to Global Warming: A sincere and energetic group of college
students have found a way to deal with one of the gravest of threats
facing our world today, by addressing the problem at its roots, bringing
people with diverse viewpoints together--and having a lot of fun along the
way."<http://newdimensions.org/listen-now/programofweek.html>The
program can be heard via the Internet thru January 29. - thanks to
Andrew Main for the tip.

Later in the day. Better links for the articles below. Thanks Andrew Main.

1-20-06
-
Some very bad news for those who were planning on a manageable future
- environmental disaster predicted to be just around the corner by the man
who created the theory of Gaia. In Current Events to end current events as
we know it. It's all predicted in "The Revenge of Gaia." Sorry.

5/05/04 - So far I can think of only two species threats. Other suggestions are
welcome. Andrew Atkinson suggested climate change but I'm not convinced
that there's anything on the horizon there that the human race wouldn't
adapt to, at least some of us. But there are two dangers that seem to be
serious threats to the survival of the species and, avoiding that, major
threats to any imaginable lesser degree. Carl Sagan was hip to this and he
will be remembered here later. For now, here are the big two as seen by
cuke.com. - DC. [Changed my mind 0n this. See Species Threat #3 above] -
And there are more, many more. - dc 11-18-14